Perfect
by poeticgrace
Summary: Jan's baby shower gives Ryan an entirely new perspective of Kelly. ONE SHOT.


As soon as the door to the conference room closed, Ryan Howard replaced the telephone headset with the earbuds to his iPod to drown out the relentless ringing that now defined his career. With the rest of the office staff taking part in the baby shower for Jan's already born offspring, he could spend the next hour zoning out rather than pretending to do his job. Michael had very awkwardly, very gently explained to him this morning that he wasn't invited because of Jan's condition. He somehow believed that she would actually be jealous of the attention that Michael gave Ryan. He didn't want any hot people around to make her feel bad. Glad to have an excuse not to attend what was sure to be a disaster of an event, Ryan had feigned compassion for his former boss' vulnerable state and promised to stay as far away from her as possible.

Leaning back in his seat, he glanced into the conference room at the group of people sitting in a circle around Jan. Meredith sipped absently from her ever-present 7-11 cup while Stanley worked on the morning's crossword puzzle. Phyllis had the same kind smile that she always had on her face at those kinds of things, and Jim was making his signature faces at the camera. Creed kept taking napkins off the table and stuffing them into his pocket, while Oscar and Kevin were tossing a wad of paper back and forth every time Michael turned his back. Angela seemed completely disinterested in everything around her, and Andy looked like an overjoyed woman dreaming of her own baby shower some day. Ryan still didn't understand those two. Dwight was mysteriously missing. In the midst of all those people, however, his eyes fell upon only one.

Sitting slightly leaned forward, Kelly smiled brightly as Jan lifted the tiny bundle of joy for everyone to see. Astrid was wrapped in a soft pink blanket, her cheeks that certain shade of crimson special to newborn babies. Kelly cooed over the child, reaching down to rub her thumb over her smooth cheek. Phyllis peaked over her shoulder and murmured something to Kelly, causing her to smile widely. Kelly nodded slightly and said something back, but Ryan couldn't quite make out the words as he tried to read her lips. Then, everyone else started to huddle around, and he suddenly couldn't see her anymore.

It was the first time since he had been back in Scranton that Ryan had seen her look like her old self. Sure, she still dressed the part, sashaying past the reception every morning in a form-fitting dress or a skirt that hit just above the knee. However, the look in her eyes was far different from the Kelly he had spent two years trying to avoid a relationship with. Her signature sparkle just wasn't there. Instead, her deep chocolate eyes were almost lackluster and vacant. She'd still smile his way every so often but he knew it was false. In fact, he hadn't seen her smile genuinely at anyone since he'd accepted the receptionist position. Somewhere along the way, Kelly had lost herself, and Ryan knew that he was to blame.

Looking back to the conference room, he noticed that everyone had returned to their seats. Kelly was sitting next to Kevin now, her legs crossed as she looked at the poster board decorated with everyone's baby photos. He'd snuck into the room on his break earlier, wanting to see if Michael's snapshot gave any indication to the man he would turn out to be. However, it wasn't his photograph that ended up captivating his attention. Instead, he had ended up staring at Kelly's black and white picture for a full five minutes, completely in awe of what a beautiful little girl she had been. She had certainly grown up to be beautiful, that was the one thing he had never denied when it came to her. He'd just had no idea that her natural beauty was something that she had always possessed. For a moment, he almost wondered what their child would have looked like if they'd had one.

Shaking the thought off now at the desk, he tried to remember how angry he had been last fall when she had lied to him about the fake pregnancy. He'd been terrified when she had told him that he was going to be a father. The last thing he wanted to do was be trapped by some Scranton obligation after the new life he'd started for himself in New York City. However, even in his selfish reverie, Ryan had known that he would do the right thing. If Kelly had really been pregnant, he would have stepped up and been the dad that his father never was. He would have made their child the center of his universe and found a way to deal with Kelly. In those few hours from the time she had told him to when she confessed the lie over dinner at her favorite Italian place, he had actually even thought that it might be nice to have a baby. All those good feelings immediately flew out the window when she had told him the truth, and he was reminded once again just why he needed to get out of that place.

It wasn't the first time that Kelly had broached the baby subject with him. In fact, from the very beginning of their supposed relationship, it had been a favorite topic of conversation for her. Not long after they had started dating, Dunder Mifflin had hosted Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Kelly had gotten jealous when she'd thought that he was flirting with Stanley's teenaged daughter, a fact that she had very willingly pointed out to the salesman. He'd screamed at him for fifteen minutes in the break room, which still ranked as one of the scariest moments of his life. Afterward, he'd found her talking to Angela about how much she loved children. He'd quickly come to realize that no matter how casual he wanted their relationship to be, it would never match the future Kelly already had planned for him. She'd already envisioned a life of marriage and babies for them.

A lot had changed in the two years since that day. He'd broken her heart a million times since then, and she had broken his once. He had spent nights in jail, throwing up at dozens of bars all over Manhattan, curled up in his bed next to Michael and on top of more than a few women while trying to forget her name. She had spent nights crying alone in her bedroom, drowning her sorrows with friends over cocktail's at Poor Richard's, curled up next to Darryl on her couch and in bed with him trying to forget that he wasn't Ryan. They'd both succeeded at it for awhile, too. If Michael hadn't shown up and dragged Ryan back to Dunder Mifflin, they probably still would. It was only when they were in the same building that they ran into a problem. He was finally ready for a chance, but she wasn't willing to give him another one.

Ryan couldn't say that he blamed her really. She had given him many during the course of their relationship, far more than he deserved. She had been patient when he had blamed it on the stresses of business school. She had tried to be understanding when he told her that it was just because of the pressure of making his first sale. She had tried to believe him when he said that it was over her parents' disapproval. Every thing he threw her way for two years, Kelly took it on as her own and swallowed it like a champ. Up until the moment he broke her heart, she would have given him anything. However, the moment he told her that they were never getting back together, he had killed apart of her. The part of her heart that had believed in him and would have forgiven Ryan for anything died that day, and she had vowed that it would never been resurrected.

Only now in retrospect did he understand what his selfishness had cost him. It had cost him the one woman who had seen the best in him no matter what, even when he refused to see it himself. It had cost him the one woman he could all in the middle of the night when he heard a strange noise and not feel ashamed when he confessed that he was scared. It had cost him the one woman who had ever not been scared to go toe to toe with his mother when she started putting him down for being stuck in some dead-end job in Scranton. It had cost him the one woman who had ever really loved him without wanting something in return. It had cost him everything.

His eyes wandered from the empty space on the wall where he'd been staring for the past ten minutes back into the room where the party was falling apart. He could see Jim and Meredith slowly trying to inch toward the door with Oscar and Stanley not far behind. He contemplated putting the earpiece back in but quickly decided against it when he saw Michael start to rant. Less than a minute later, the room emptied as workers spilled back into the hallway. A low buzz filled the previously quiet space as people headed back to their desks. His eyes followed Kelly back to the annex, her head bent over as she walked away from him. Glancing back at the nearly empty conference room, he saw that only Jan and Michael were left behind. When Jan handed the baby over to Michael, Ryan sighed deeply to himself and begrudgingly started to answer the phones again.

"Dunder Mifflin, this is Ryan," he recited, hating the words even more this time than he did the last fifty times he'd said them. Jan walked tiredly past his desk and collapsed onto the sofa, pulling a pink overcoat across her body. Within a matter of seconds, the new mother was deep into a REM cycle and completely dead to the world. Ryan tried to ignore the loud sound of her snoring as he tried to focus on the caller's question. Finally, he decided just to transfer it back to Meredith, not really caring what the old man's problem was.

Michael called out to Phyllis, and the Mother Goose figure of the office slowly ambled toward the conference room to relieve her boss of baby duty. Shaking his head, Michael headed toward the elevator to go down to the warehouse. Phyllis started to walk the length of the hallway as the baby began to cry, doing her best to try to appease the wailing infant. She attempted to sooth Astrid with the same soft, monotone voiced she always used to no avail. Finally, a perturbed Angela took the baby from her arms and headed toward the break room with Andy in toe, the sounds of newborn sobs fading in the distance.

Fifteen minutes later, when Angela and Andy still hadn't returned, a bored Kelly came out of the annex in search of the baby. She stopped by Stanley's desk to ask a few questions, but he simply ignored her. Jim was too busy trying to talk on the phone with Pam to even notice she was there, and Meredith had already passed out from her customary midday round of shots. She was just about to attempt an actual conversation with Creed when Phyllis reappeared much to her relief. "Do you know where Astrid is?" Ryan heard Kelly ask Phyllis. Her brown eyes darted around the office until they locked with his. Kelly grimaced for a moment before looking past him to the sofa. "Jan is still sleeping, so I'm assuming someone has her here somewhere."

"Angela and Andy took her back to the break room," Phyllis answered softly. "Apparently, in addition to planning parties and picking out non-whorish colors, I am also incapable of properly calming down a crying baby."

Kelly reached out and rested her hand on the older woman's shoulder reassuringly. "I'm sure that you tried your best," she replied compassionately. Ryan could almost hear her contemplating telling Phyllis about this story she'd read in _US Magazine_ about how hard it had been for Angelina Jolie when she'd first adopted Maddox but knew the awesomeness of the celebrity's maternal progress would be lost on a woman like Phyllis. Besides, the opening of a door and loud cries from Astrid snapped her out of her thoughtful reverie. A frazzled Andy reappeared, and he collapsed back behind his monitor with his head in his hands. Kelly turned to him with concern. "What is wrong with Astrid?"

"How should I know?" he shrugged in defeat. "Angela wouldn't even let me get near the baby. She kept insisting that I would probably drop her. Just because I accidentally dropped that punch bowl when I tricked her into coming with me to Crate and Barrel to register for wedding gifts does not mean that I can't hold onto a baby. She needs to let me practice for when we have kids. I mean, she has fragile bones. I can't expect her to do all the heavy lifting."

"Uh, yeah," Kelly deadpanned, looking at the man in horror. Even she didn't know what to say to a man that was so sensitive and emotional that it made her look like, well, Ryan. "Maybe I should go in there and help her. I'm pretty good with babies. I got a lot of experience growing up with all my sisters."

She glanced up at Ryan again as she headed back toward the break room. He heard the door open followed by Angela arguing as Kelly took the baby from her arms. The petite accountant stormed past her fiancé and back to her desk in the corner. Ryan felt bad for Kevin and Oscar, knowing that the day would likely be hell for both of them. As he hung up the phone from yet another call, he realized that Astrid had stopped crying. In fact, other than the occasional phone ringing and Jan's incessant snoring, the office was completely silent and still.

Ryan looked up at Jim, hating what he was about to do but knowing that he didn't have any choice. "Hey, Jim?" he called out to the lanky salesman. Jim turned from his monitor with an amused smirk on his face. He'd really been laying into Ryan since he'd come back to Scranton, doing his best to get payback for what he'd put up with last year. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Can _I_ do _you_ a favor?" Jim repeated, punctuating each word for emphasis. Ryan tried not to roll his eyes at his co-worker's cocky demeanor. He needed something from him, and if he could just get through the next two minutes acting nicely, he might be able to get it. "I don't know, ask it and we'll see."

Standing up, Ryan came out from around the desk. "Can you cover the phones for a minute while I go check on Kelly?" he pleaded. He hated having to ask anyone here for anything. It just felt degrading. "It'll just be a minute." Jim tapped the side of his face as if he was actually feigning contemplation. This time, Ryan gave into the temptation of rolling his eyes. "You know what, screw it, let Michael fire me."

Jim was surprised when Ryan stalked past him and back toward the break room where Kelly was keeping watch over the baby. He turned around just in time to see the tall brunette pause timidly at the door, watching her for just a moment, before going inside. When the door closed behind him, Kelly looked at him with a blank face. "What are you doing here?"

Ryan gaped at Kelly, knowing that she had never looked more beautiful than she did right then. She sat in a chair with a sleeping Astrid pressed to her shoulder, rocking her back and forth in a very gentle rhythm. Her other shoulder was covered with the fuzzy pink blanket. She'd pulled her hair back in a messy bun in an effort to keep it out of her face. He knew then and there that this is exactly what he wanted. No matter what he had said before about having children with Kelly, this was what he wanted. He wanted to come home from work and find her holding their baby in a nursery in a home they'd bought together for their new family. "Kelly."

Her name was like a soulful breath on his lips, a fact that didn't seem to be lost on her. He saw the subtle reaction on her face, the slight way the corners of her mouth turned up when he said her name. However, as quickly as it had come, the smile faded away, only to be replaced with a disinterested frown. "Ryan," she sighed, managing to sound both contemptuous and bored at the same time. "You didn't answer my question. What are you doing back here? And can you stop staring at me?"

He shook his head silently, his eyes still fixated on her. "I can't," he confessed, surprised at how easily the words tumbled out of his mouth. He'd always had a hard time being honest with Kelly in the past, whether that admitting that he wanted to break up with her or that he had been in love with her all along. However, as he gazed at her holding that tiny newborn, honesty seemed to resonate from him. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt completely open to another human being. "You just look so…"

She looked up at him, her face hard and unrecognizable. He could see the wall she had built around herself, the one that she was so determined to keep up. He almost wished that she was crying. He knew how to deal with the tears. He was used to the laughter. It was only this numbness that was foreign to him. "I look what?" she demanded.

"Right." Her jaw dropped open as Ryan stood frozen in the door way, his clear azure eyes penetrating right through that wall. With a single word, he managed to send months of bricks and mortar tumbling to the ground. "Perfect. Amazing. Beautiful. All of the words apply, but right was just the right one. You look right holding a baby."

He didn't say another word as he turned on his heel and headed back to the empty reception desk. Michael still hadn't returned from the warehouse, and Jim didn't speak up when Ryan reattached his earpiece and answered the incoming call with the same professional greeting, "Dunder Mifflin, this is Ryan."

Five minutes and seven calls later, Jan awoke from her nap and hazily stumbled toward the break room in search of her daughter. Michael came back upstairs a moment later, and soon, the two of them were packing Astrid up so that they could go home. Kelly stood by, holding the little girl, as they packed the new stroller into the idling elevator. "Be good for your mommy," Kelly told the sleeping infant sweetly as she settled her back into Jan's arms. Her eyes lingered on Astrid until the doors of the elevator slid shut, returning her back to the mundane routine of her day. As she turned around, her eyes sought out Ryan. Brown crashed with blue as she slowly walked toward him. She paused at the desk, her fingers dancing nervously over the slick surface. "About what you said…"

"I meant it," he assured her, not even bothering to lower his voice so that no one else could hear. He didn't care if everyone in the office hard what he had to say to Kelly. She deserved at least that and so much more from him. "Kel, really, I meant it."

"Oh, Ry," she murmured, her voice taking on that intimate tone she had always reserved only for him. She hadn't used it in months, but it still fit her like an old favorite dress. As much as she didn't want to give into him, she wanted to be with him even more. She could keep up the ruse for a few more months and then give in, but what was the point? They had already played that game for too many years. "I think I'm ready to have that drink now."

A genuine smile spread across his lips as he recalled their conversation a few weeks ago, one that had ended with her rejection and his humbling. "Okay," he nodded, leaning forward in anticipation. He reached his hand up and grazed his fingertips barely over her skin. "Let's do it tonight."

"I'd love that," she agreed. Kelly smiled coyly at him and started to sidle off toward her workspace back in the annex. Just as she reached the end of the reception desk, she turned back to Ryan. "Only this time, you can pick me up at seven," she told him, "and don't be late."

_Fin._


End file.
